Opinion poll
Despite the rift in the coalition: the majority of Germans support Scholz when it comes to Taurus-No
Should Germany supply Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine? Olaf Scholz says no – and so does a majority of Germans
© Christoph Schmidt / DPA
The delivery of German Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine is the controversial topic in the traffic light coalition. The majority of Germans think Chancellor Scholz’s clear no is correct. But they are divided on another issue.
Söder is also alluding to the dispute in the traffic light coalition. Green Party politician Anton Hofreiter said on ZDF’s “heute journal” on Tuesday evening that Scholz was acting irresponsibly with “his completely irresponsible justification for the Taurus cancellation.” Hofreiter called Scholz’s rejection “a gesture of weakness towards (Russian President Vladimir) Putin, which is very blatant.” The FDP defense expert Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said on Tuesday she was “really stunned” by the Chancellor’s attitude. On the TV channel Welt she referred to the “dramatic situation in Ukraine”.
35 percent of Germans are in favor of delivering the Taurus to Ukraine – Olaf Scholz is not
But the majority of Germans think the Chancellor’s Taurus rejection is correct: According to the current RTL/ntv trend barometer, 56 percent of German citizens are. They are of the opinion that Germany should not supply the precision weapon to Ukraine. However, 35 percent of those surveyed are in favor of such a delivery.
When it comes to the question of Germany’s general commitment to Ukraine, however, Germans are divided into three camps. At 39 percent, a slight majority of those surveyed said that the extent of the federal government’s support for Ukraine was “just right.” 30 percent are of the opinion that the government is doing too little, 28 percent believe that the support is too much.
Compared to January 2023, the proportion of those who consider the level of support for Ukraine to be “just right” has fallen by eight percentage points (47 percent at the time). At the same time, the proportion of those who accuse the Federal Government of not being sufficiently committed to Ukraine (26 percent at the time) has increased slightly, as has the proportion of those who believe that the Federal Government’s commitment goes too far (23 percent at the time).
Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression, the opinion research institute Forsa has repeatedly asked German citizens how they assess the federal government’s efforts to support Ukraine. The data was collected on February 23 and 26, 2024 on behalf of RTL Deutschland. 1009 people were interviewed.